Comments

It is difficult but doable. The nastiest weapons in the game (the high end Epic Unique staves) are actually particularly suitable for melee Alchys.

You can certainly beat the campaign with a melee Alchy if you are prudent and learn how to handle him, and manage his Attributes and Armors effectively. Running that character up to max XP and Fame may be a significant challenge however.

I need to ask, for Melee Alchy, is it better to always use Staves instead any Sword+Shield?
I am trying a Melee + some Caster skills, specially Ember Stryke, but I am not sure if it is affected by using a Staff or do the same damage while equipping a Sword (In wich case I should rise the Martial Weapon Mastery instead Magic Weapon Mastery)

The point is that you generally need to raise your Magic Attribute to help out some of your Alchemist Skills. If you go Sword and Shield, then you also have a need to be raising your Strength to enhance their effect in melee. You've created a need to split the distribution of your XP points. Whereas, if you stick with Staves, Wands, or Wand & Shield, you can pour the majority of your XP allocations into Magic and have them work for both Skills and fighting.

Not that you can't do it that way, or find a way to balance things to your taste, or find that it is just fun for you, but you ought to be aware of the game dynamic that you are working around.

dreamrider

PS - note that at similar item level (which affects what is dropping now), stave tend to be among the most powerful melee weapons. Almost none of them do physical damage, however. One subtle tactic you can use to deal with this is to carry two powerful Staves in the alternate weapon slots. One, say, fire-based and the other icey. flip your staves if faced with a monster that is particularly resistant to fire damage.

Have you ever heard of the "Battle" spec? Good, in that branch there is a skill called Infuse that give a boost to all melee and ranged damage. So the skill set is also compatible with the Sword&Shield gear and you can raise however the magic stat.